Thank you so much to everyone who has read and reviewed! I really hope that you enjoy the new chapter! Happy Easter!
Ups and Downs
"Hey, Pete? Can I talk to you for a second?" Peter glanced up from his homework to find Tony leaning in the doorway to his bedroom. It had been two weeks since his birthday party, and already he was struggling to remember how happy he'd been...how much fun it had been. It was like a black cloud had found him recently. Like he couldn't hold on to happiness for longer than a few minutes. He'd laugh at a joke, or go down to the lab and work with Tony and feel at peace, but as soon as he was alone again...he was down. Had been down.
And sure, there had been lots of bright spots. He and Ned had had a sleepover the weekend before, and that had been a lot of fun, especially when Tony had let them play in his lab for a while. The two of them had spent hours messing with his webshooters and Ned had gotten to look at all of Tony's computers. So that had been great. But ever since May things had been so much harder, and he was wondering if that would ever go away.
It wasn't because of nightmares. He'd learned that the first week after his birthday...about three days later. Peter had closed his eyes, curled up in the top bunk, and the dream had started. Sitting in a car, talking to May, and feeling that sense of foreboding….
But then he and May had been on a beach...a beach with soft, green waves crashing around him. And she'd been laughing. Smiling over at him and reaching out from her beach chair to take his hand. "I love you, baby." She'd told him, and he'd woken up to his alarm, ridiculously well rested and…happy. Just for a while, he'd been happy.
No, that wasn't fair. He was happy with Tony. And he was excited about Father's day and their trip to California. But...there was something else. Something heavy and always in the back of his mind that seemed to almost disappear when he was with other people but that was there...somewhere in the back of his mind. It was there. And he thought that maybe he should tell Tony...or maybe someone else. Just...talk to someone. But he had caused so much trouble for so many people, and he was sick of it.
So he'd done his best to smash it down. To focus instead on the good things in his life. And when that failed, he'd talk to Ned or find Tony or Pepper or even Loki and spend time with them. He was pretty sure that Loki knew what was going on. Still, the Asgardian never called him out. Pepper and Tony, on the other hand, always seemed happy to spend time with him and never seemed to notice that he was just trying to cheer himself up.
After patrolling for a couple of hours after school, he'd headed back to the tower to do his homework, texting with Ned throughout. As he sat at his desk, he felt it again, no matter how he tried to focus on his homework. And as he glanced down at his calculus homework, he felt the overwhelming urge to tell Tony. To admit that he felt like something was wrong and that he was just sad and tired and even though he should be happy, he felt...heavy. He loved hanging out with his friends and new family and he loved Tony...but...there were days when he was still sad. And tired.
He shook that thought off when he caught the look on Tony's face. The man seemed almost worried, so Peter put his pencil down, nodding and turning in his desk chair. Tony stepped into the room, ruffling Peter's hair as he passed, then dropped onto the bottom bunk of Peter's bed, making sure to duck his head so that he didn't whack his head. "How was school?"
"Um...it was fine." Tony gave him a closer look then, and Peter realized that he might not have been fooling the man after all.
"You alright, kiddo?"
"Yeay...fine."
"You sure? You've been quiet this week…" Peter shrugged, not sure what to say. "How's MJ?"
To be honest, MJ had been...not great. She'd snapped at both him and Ned more than once when they'd asked how she was doing, and the three of them were existing in a kind of uneasy silence. It kind of sucked, honestly. Earlier that day, he'd told her that he was there if she wanted to talk, and she'd just kind of shrugged him off...which might have explained why he was feeling so crappy that day. So he wasn't really sure how to explain to Tony how she was. He settled for shrugging again, and Tony crossed his arms, looking more concerned than before. "She's...I don't know. Not great."
"Does she need anything?"
Peter bit back the response he wanted to give...that she had barely spoken to him that week. He knew he wasn't being fair. He of all people knew how rough it was to lose someone, even though Michelle hadn't lost her father in the same way...and even though Peter personally thought her father was a douchebag. "I don't think so."
Tony stood then, moving over to Peter's side and dropping a hand on his shoulder, looking down at him seriously. "What's going on, Pete?" And Peter wanted to tell him...wanted to explain. But he didn't know himself. So he just shrugged again, praying that the man didn't lose patience with him. Tony grabbed his arm, tugging him to his feet, then led him over to the bed where he sat back down, pulling Peter to sit beside him, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and holding him close to his side. Peter didn't even hesitate to close his eyes, resting his head on Tony's shoulder and taking a deep breath, trying to push back the unrelenting sadness that seemed to be following him around.
"I don't know." Peter murmured, and Tony rubbed a hand up and down his back, leaning against the wall pulling him closer. "I'm sorry…"
"Rule number 1, Peter." Peter felt a flash of irritation that he hated himself for. He wasn't irritated with Tony. He was irritated with MJ, and with himself for being irritated with her, and just...strangely sad. It was something he'd been feeling on and off since May had died, but after his party it only seemed to get worse, which made no sense to him. Tony must have felt him stiffen because he squeezed his shoulder, a thumb rubbing over his collarbone. The man took a deep breath, seeming to gather his thoughts, then spoke softly into Peter's hair. "You don't have to apologize for not being happy all the time, Pete. You're allowed to be sad, or angry, or however else you feel."
He wanted to apologize again but managed to stop himself. Instead, he just rested his head against Tony's shoulder, taking deep breaths of the smell of engine oil and cologne and the man that he'd started thinking of as his father. Peter sniffed a little, wiping at his eyes and fighting furiously not to start crying. He was sixteen years old. He shouldn't have been crying over nothing. But his eyes still heated up and he closed them, shuddering as he fought back a sob. "You want to talk about it?" He shrugged. "You know I'm here, right? Like, I'm here for you if you want to talk. About anything. You're my kid."
Peter sat silently beside him for a long time, struggling to stop crying over what felt like nothing and everything all at once. Finally, he spoke, eyes lowered. "I miss May."
"Yeah?" Tony rubbed his back, nodding a little. "I know, buddy."
"I don't know what's wrong." He admitted. "MJ's been really upset and I…" Peter shrugged. "I don't know." He swallowed, cursing himself for giving in so easily. For not trying harder to stop bothering Tony with every little thing. "I'm just sad." He knew it sounded stupid, but he hoped that Tony could understand.
Of course he did. The hand on his back didn't stop rubbing gentle circles as Tony nodded. "Okay." He murmured, resting his cheek on the side of the top of Peter's head. "All the time?" Peter nodded.
"I mean...not...not all the time but...it's always...there." He tried to explain.
"Okay," Tony said again, squeezing Peter to his side. "Okay, we can do something about that." Peter blinked in surprise, pulling away and looking up at him. Of course, if he'd thought about it, he'd known that Tony would listen to him and be sympathetic. But...he hadn't thought that Tony could actually...do anything about it.
"Do something?" He asked.
"Yeah, kiddo." Tony smiled a little, keeping a hand on his back and holding him close. "We can find someone for you to talk to. We can see if you need to go on some kind of medicine to help."
"I'm not...I don't need...medicine." Peter grumbled a little, ashamed without knowing why. Tony softened.
"I do." He blinked, eyes widening. "I've been through some rough shit, Pete. After my thousandth panic attack, I finally started talking to someone. Went on some anxiety medication. Set up a regular appointment with a real therapist. All that fun stuff."
Peter hesitated, afraid of the hope that blossomed in his chest. "And...it helped?"
"Yeah, kiddo. It really did." He swallowed, nodding, and Tony squeezed the back of his neck. "Maybe sometime this week we can set you up an appointment. What do you think?"
"Um…" He nodded, dropping his eyes to his lap and shrugging a little. "Okay." He wiped irritably at his eyes, fighting the urge to say sorry again.
"Sounds good." Tony patted him on the back, leaning back a little and looking at him straight on.
"So...you needed to talk to me?" He asked, wanting to change the subject.
"Yeah." Tony nodded, looking almost grim.
"Am I in trouble?" He asked, almost joking. It worked, and Tony smiled.
"No, kiddo. You're not in trouble. I was talking to Pep and...well, there's a Stark Industries meeting that I have been postponing for...well, a long time. And I can't put it off anymore."
"Oh...okay…"
"It's actually more of a business trip. I have to leave Sunday, and I'll be gone for about five days. I managed to cut it down from seven days, but Pepper said that was as low as I could go."
"Oh." Peter blinked, forcing himself to nod. He was sixteen years old now, he reminded himself. Way too old to be sad about something like that. He hadn't been away from Tony for that long since the man had taken him in but before that, he and Tony had only seen each other once a week, and before that, twice a month. So this was no big deal. He would be fine. "Where are you going?"
"Hong Kong. It's a big conference or something...I kind of stopped listening." He admitted with a smile, and Peter laughed. "I tried to see if Pepper could send someone else but…"
"No, you should go," Peter told him, not wanting Tony to get behind on work because of him. "Is Pepper going too?"
He nodded. "Yeah. It'll be me and Pepper, but Happy and Rhodey will still be here to look after you."
"I don't need a babysitter." Tony chuckled, crossing his arms and shifting against the wall.
"They won't be babysitting. They'll just be checking in. Thor and Loki are going to be on their floor if you need them, and you can always call me. In fact, I want you to call me. Every day. Preferably multiple times a day. Because I'll definitely be calling you. Unless…" He trailed off. "Unless you want to come."
Immediately that sounded better. Yes. Peter wanted to go. He'd never been to Hong Kong, or anywhere except Germany, really. And he'd be with Tony and...and finals were coming up. He sighed. "I can't. Finals are the week after."
Tony nodded. "Yeah. I figured you'd say that. Well, if you change your mind, we can figure something out."
Peter didn't change his mind. He needed to be in class the week before finals. But there was also something else coming up. Tony's business trip started that Sunday, May 12th and he would return the 17th...and May's birthday was the 15th. It wasn't something he wanted to think about. And he wasn't about to ask Tony to come home early, not when he had already cut his business trip shorter than it would have been. So he kept his mouth shut, spending time with Tony whenever he could that week even as Pepper had more meetings than ever, possibly in preparation for their vacation the following month.
That Wednesday, Tony had his therapist come to the tower so that Peter could meet him and see if this was something he wanted to continue. Tony was pretty sure that talking to this guy would help, but Peter was kind of iffy about actually talking to some stranger, especially considering what he did after school every day. But Tony had promised him that he didn't have to tell the man, whose name was Evan, that he was Spiderman. He had also promised Peter that he could trust him...he'd told Even all sorts of thing about being Iron Man, and because of patient confidentiality, none of that information had ever been made public. "The first session is mostly him just getting to know you. Nothing to worry about. You never have to talk about anything you don't want to." Tony promised as he and Peter stood outside the door to the room that they would be using.
And Tony was right. The first session was more of an introduction, and while Tony sat in another room, working on his tablet, Peter talked to Evan about school and listened to the man talk about himself a little bit. He didn't really ask any hard questions, although he did ask Peter how he'd been feeling, and when Peter admitted that he'd been feeling really sad, the man asked a little more about that. He did his best to explain, fighting the fear that the therapist would think he was crazy or something. The guy was a therapist...like, a professional that Mr. Stark trusted, he told himself as he did his best to describe the sadness he had been feeling.
Evan asked him a couple of questions, never pushing too hard, nodding and repeating his own thoughts back to him in ways that actually made sense. It was almost comforting. He'd been able to talk to Tony, but with the man he considered his father, it was almost harder sometimes, especially when he worried that his emotions and problems would upset Tony. With Evan, this man didn't know him...had no connection to him.
Toward the end of the hour, the man clasped his hands, leaning forward in the armchair where he'd been sitting, taking notes in a notebook. "How would you feel about going on medication to help you deal with these feelings?" The therapist asked, face gentle and open. Peter swallowed hard, shrugging a little. He had known that that might be a possibility. Tony had mentioned it, plus the fact that Tony himself was on medication. But it still made him nervous. He didn't want to have to rely on medicine to make him normal...he just wanted to be normal. Like he'd been before everything.
"If you think I should…" He muttered, wanting a way out of this but also afraid. "Like...if you think it will help."
Even put the notebook he'd been writing in down on the arm of his chair, smiling a little. "I don't know very much about you yet, but I do know that you've experienced some traumatic events recently, which can trigger depression and heightened levels of anxiety, especially in adolescents. And I think that medication will help, even if it's not something you stay on for an extended period of time. It's something we might want to talk to Tony about if you're willing to give it a try."
By the end of the hour, he was exhausted, even though they didn't talk anything too serious. Peter touched on May's death, and told him a little about his troubles with MJ and what it was like to be Spiderman. He let slip a little about the pressures he felt sometimes...about how he struggled to balance it all. But nothing too deep. Evan didn't ask him anything more about May or his friend or Spiderman. Just let him talk about anything he wanted to, only asking about Peter's feelings. And it was kind of a relief to talk about them.
When Tony came back into the room, he immediately dropped onto the sofa beside Peter and draped an arm around his shoulders. Peter dropped his head onto the man's shoulder, fitting himself naturally against the man's side. "You okay, Pete?" Tony asked, and Peter nodded. "What do you think, doc?"
Even had assured Peter that he would only share what Peter told him he could unless Peter talked about wanting to harm himself or others, with was fair, and Peter had told him that he could talk to Tony about anything from the first session. He'd already told all of it to Tony anyway, so he sat in silence as Even brought up medication again, mentioning the fact that Peter was exhibiting signs of depression, which were more and more common in kids his age, especially considering what he'd been through. Tony nodded slowly as the doctor spoke, glancing over at Peter and squeezing his shoulder. "I'd rather wait until after my business trip for him to start any new medication."
Evan nodded. "I agree. He will need to be monitored pretty closely for the first week or so, and it would be better if you were close by."
"Why don't we talk to Bruce and see if we need to adjust it for your metabolism, and then you can try it after you finish up with finals?" Peter nodded, still not 100% sure, but glad that he didn't have to start immediately. At least he'd get some time to think about it.
"If at any point while taking this medication and you start to feel worse, or you feel sick, you can let someone know and we can try something else," Evan assured him, probably able to read the apprehension on his face, and Tony nodded.
"No one is going to force you into anything, Pete. I promise. If you try it and hate it, just tell me, okay?" He nodded, letting Tony squeeze him one more time before he sat up, pulling away a little as Tony thanked Evan for coming and setting up an appointment to talk about medication and another session for after he returned from his trip.
Since he'd skipped patrols to have his session with the doctor, Peter practically sprinted to his room, throwing his suit on, then throwing himself out of his window and off his balcony in his rush to get out of that building. Not that he didn't love the tower...but he felt like he was full of pent-up energy...practically vibrating with it. So for the next few hours, he threw himself into patrols, swinging around almost manically, stopping muggings and a drug deal or two, saving a few cats from trees and earning minimal scratches.
Thankfully he hadn't run into any more lost parrots, but he did find himself climbing to the top of a tree to save an old woman's pet iguana who, surprisingly, allowed herself to be returned to her grateful owner with minimal fuss.
He texted Ned on and off throughout his patrols, keeping him up to date, even though he hadn't mentioned meeting with a therapist. He was supposed to be Spiderman, after all. Ned didn't need to know that a therapist wanted to put him on medication. Peter didn't want anyone's pity, especially not his friend's. Ned asked him about patrols and his opinion on MJ's bad mood, with Peter's advice being to just leave her be for a while until she came to them.
Maybe he'd ask Tony for advice.
When he crawled back in through his window later that evening, he had barely taken his mask off before Tony was texting him, asking him to meet him in the living room. Worried that he'd somehow done something wrong in the last couple of hours, he checked his watch to make sure he wasn't late, then changed into his regular clothes and headed to the living room where he found Tony on the sofa, reading through some paperwork. The man glanced up at him as he entered the room, smiling and gesturing for Peter to join him. "Hey, kid. How were patrols."
"Fine. I saved an iguana." Tony blinked at that, raising his eyebrows. "He was in a tree."
"People in New York have weird pets." The man muttered, shaking his head and chuckling. "Pepper gave me my itinerary for the trip...I'll probably have to leave by noon on Sunday, and I'll be back late Friday night. I talked to Rhodey and he's going to stay here on this floor with you." Peter opened his mouth to argue that the man didn't have to, but Tony held up a hand. "He's not babysitting. But if you're still going to be doing patrols, I want someone here on this floor. He's usually at work until 6 or 7, but he agreed to do as much work from the tower as he can." Figuring that he wasn't going to convince Tony otherwise, he just nodded. "Same rules apply. Home from patrols by six, finish your homework." The man waved a hand as he trailed off. "You know all this. I'm lucky I got a good kid." Peter felt himself flush a little as Tony squeezed his shoulder. "Alright. How are you on homework?"
"I'm almost caught up."
"Good. How about a movie before you finish up?" Honestly, that sounded perfect, so Peter headed to the kitchen to grab something to drink while Tony ordered Chinese food, and that evening found the two of them on the sofa, wrapped up in blankets and watching a movie that Peter was almost certain hadn't even been released yet, but he certainly wasn't about to complain.
Thank you for reading!
